Your Friends and Loved Ones Have Enough of Thier Own Elephants...

Don't Add More!

Thanks to some encouragement from some very dear friends, I've returned to my keyboard in hopes of planting more of the content residing in my pea brain in cyberspace... enjoy!

 

This is the 6th installment of my personal blog. I started it when a friend advised me to write to cope with a very deep and personal loss. The theme thus far has been:

How to Deal With Tough Times and Keep Your Sanity Intact

 

Ok, some of you may be a little confused about the topic. In an earlier blog I encouraged you to share your elephants with friends and family as a technique to aid you in dealing with your issues. (See Nugget #2 – Share Your Elephant Bites With Others). Now it appears I'm discouraging the practice. I'm not. What I'm saying is that you need to be aware that the people who are close to you automatically have to eat servings of elephant that you create.

 

For example, a husband loses his license because he was caught drinking and driving. With no way of getting to work it falls to his wife to drive him so he doesn't get fired. The wife is now eating a slice of her husband's "drinking elephant". Be aware that you do not live in a bubble. The consequences of your actions resound to everyone in your circle of life.

 

I would like to think that most of you avoid the practice of drinking and driving, so let me approach this from different angles. There's more than one way to create elephants for those who love you. It's not limited to getting into trouble, you can dish up headaches in many different ways.

 

Let me fall back to the husband and wife dynamic for a moment. My understanding of the way a marriage should work is that both spouses should be the primary sources for affection and companionship in life for one another. This doesn't preclude outside relationships, but external relationships should take a lower priority to the spouses' relationship towards one another. Keeping that in mind, lets look at Bob and Mary.

 

Bob collects lint. Mary has no interest in lint. Despite this, Bob spends the majority of his time collecting, categorizing, and storing his lint. In addition he entertains other lint enthusiasts and they meet often to watch lint shows together, and even go on trips to lint conventions. As a result of his focus on his own interest, Bob has essentially abandoned Mary creating a "loneliness" elephant for her. Mary, feeling abandoned and hurt, creates an "affection" elephant for Bob when she denies his advances when he does get around to spending time with her. This drives Bob even further away, and the situation spirals downward with each spouse dishing up more and more elephant until one day they both mis-identify the marriage itself as their elephant and toss IT to the curb.  

 

I'm going to digress just a little here. The most lonely feeling is that of a spouse of someone who ignores them, causes them stress through carelessness, tries to control them, or sadly hurts them physically. If you're the latter, keep this in mind. You took on the mantle of soul mate when you married that person. There is no other person in the entire world that can fill that role. It would also be accurate to say that you're their SOLE mate as well. There is no other they can turn to. By design you are the person they should be able to pour their hearts out to. You are the person they should be able to trust with their very lives. There is nothing more beautiful than a pair of spouses who trust, love, and honor one another completely, and conversely there is nothing more tragic than a spouse who violates that trust, withholds that love, and dishonors their spouse. Don't oprhan your spouse, they deserve 100% of you.

 

The final scenario focuses more on the child/parent relationship. If you're under 18, EVERYTHING you do has the potential to either remove or add elephant to your parent's plate and the older you get the bigger those servings can get. On one hand, you can apply yourself to learn an instrument, perform in sports, or score high marks in school. These are great gateways to scholarships which are wonderful ways to knock the "Oh, crap, I've got to pay for Billy's college tuition!" elephant off of your parents' plates. On the flip-side, you can party, rebel, argue, and fight which are all excellent ways to dish up nasty adolescent elephants like, "Teen Pregnancy", "Addiction to Substances", "Legal Problems", "Financial Burden", and in the extreme, "Loss of Life". Though they don't have to eat the elephant you dish up for life, they still have to endure the ones you dish up before you're 18.

 

This leads me to this weeks' nugget:

 

Nugget #7 Don't BE Your Friends' and Families' Elephant.

 

The bottom line is make good decisions. If not for your sake, then do it for the sake of all the people who are in your life. You and they will be happier for it!

 

Your Dog-Loving Blogger,

 

Bunji 

Pink Elephants

Aren’t the Only Imaginary Ones

Welcome once more, Dog Lovers.

Let me first apologize for my extended absence. I traded elephants when I accepted a position with a local freight company as a data entry specialist.

My unemployment elephant got sent packing along with some of my debt elephants (HOO-RAY!). However, now I work long hours and I work exclusively at night, so there’s been a trade off. My new elephants, Loneliness and Reduced Free Time arrived. The good news is that I’m doing very well in managing these two elephants. I’ve avoided feeding them, and I share my elephants with friends and family. (See nuggets #2 and #4) All in all its well worth it. I like my job and the people I work with, and my commute is very short.

This is the 5th installment of my personal blog. I started it when a friend advised me to write to cope with a very deep and personal loss. The theme thus far has been:

How to Deal With Tough Times and Keep Your Sanity Intact

Off we go!

We sometimes (and when I say “we”, I mean “I”) have a tendency to see problems where they don’t exist.

Allow me to illustrate:

First there is a possibility of something that may not go our way.

“I hope Bob lets me borrow his car so I can make it to my job interview.”

We then assume the worst case scenario.

“Bob probably won’t lend me his car.”

Then we make a series of quite logical if/then statements.

“If I don’t get Bob’s car, then I can’t make it to the interview.”

“If I can’t make it to the interview, then I won’t get hired.”

“If I don’t get hired, then I won’t ever make money.”

“If I don’t get income, then I’ll go broke!”

“I-I-IF I go broke, then I can’t pay my rent!!”

“IF I CAN’T PAY MY RENT, THEN I’LL BE HOMELESS!!!”

“IF I’M HOMELESS, THEN MY GIRLFRIEND WILL DUMP ME ‘CAUSE I STINK, AND I’LL WIND UP EATING DOGFOOD OUT OF CAN IN A DANK ALLEY DOWN-TOWN!!!!”

Ok, so let get me get this straight, Mr. Wizard. Not getting Bob’s car equals you being a single dog-food-eating homeless person living in a dank alley down-town.

(or IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER for you Chris Farley SNL Fans.)

Ever think of rescheduling or taking the bus to your interview, genius?

“Oh, hadn’t thought of that.”

It’s natural for us to play the worst-case-scenario game. It can be a good game to play sometimes. It motivates us to purchase car insurance, make a will, and wear our seatbelts. It even helps us make good decisions in the here and now. For instance:

“Hmmm, if I call my boss a stupid, lazy, worthless pile of cow dung, then I’ll probably get fired.”

Most of the time, the worst-case-scenario game keeps us out of trouble. The trouble happens when we go to extremes with this game. We wind up twisting ourselves into knots over all the "what-if's" and "might-be's". We do this ad nauseum, ruining our meals, our sleep, and even our relationships. Its at this point when two brand new elephants appear out of thin air and plop on our laps – they quite simply called, "Worry" and "Anxiety"

Of all the elephants, these two are the trickiest to eat, because they're not real. We create them. We are so certain that the worst will happen that we make ourselves miserable anticipating terrible events. The only way to combat these two is a change our attitudes towards life.

This leads me to my next blogs’ nugget:

Nugget #6 Take Life One Day At a Time, Accept the Fact that the Future is NOT Fixed.

Its important to accept the fact that future events are not fixed. Just because something is likely to happen, it doesn’t make it so. Even if that thing does happen, there’s no guaranty that the outcome will be what you expect.

I’m personally struggling with this one. I’m in a tough spot at the moment, and I can’t see a positive outcome. As I write this blog though, I’m reminding myself that even in the event my worst case scenario happens, world ending events will NOT ensue. (i.e. alien attack, Milli Vinilli reuniting…)

This leads me to a very crucial component to defeating this elephant. I’ve not touched on it up to this point, but its key – faith. I am a Christian. I firmly believe that God is the governing force in the universe and I have a personal relationship with his Son, Jesus Christ. I don’t stand up to be counted as one of his followers enough. Often times I’m more like Peter cowering on Good Friday than I am like Peter preaching in the streets and being executed for his efforts.

At any rate, faith is so important. The belief that God is keenly aware of your situation and that he is with you when you’re going through it, might be the only thing that gets you to another sunrise. This doesn’t mean you’ve got a guarantee that the good times will always roll. It does guarantee that you’ll be given what you need to sustain and endure. If you adopt this belief and hold firm to it, you’ll feel much better about facing all the unknown tomorrows that lay in wait for you.

This leads me to two more nuggets. (More like a nugget “A” and a nugget “B”)

Nugget #7A Keep the Faith!

(This nugget is for those who’ve established a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.) Trust that no matter what, God resides within you to steel you through tough times.

Nugget #7B GET the Faith!!

(This nugget is for those who’ve never trusted Jesus with their lives)

It’s a surprisingly simple process.

No secret handshakes (course its kind of fun if you do)

No weird rituals

No chanting

#1 Admit you’re flawed, that you were born imperfect - in short admit you’re HUMAN.

#2 Believe, truly accept the fact, the truth, that an innocent man, free of sin or flaw, named Jesus Christ allowed himself to be executed. Accept the truth that this man was in fact was God’s only Son and he died in order to be resurrected so all humanity could be cleansed of their flaws - their sins through his sacrifice. Finally, accept the fact that he is the one and only way to get into God’s Kingdom.

#3 Pray for the gift of salvation. Ask the Lord to govern your life and turn your life over to him. Ask for him to forgive all your sins.

Told you it was simple. Cooking frozen Asian stir-fry is infinitely more difficult by comparison. (I know this first hand)

It’s a frightening concept. Faith in anything is mocked in our times. Don’t judge Christians by what you hear or read in the media today. Meet us, ask questions, and really see who we are. We’re not what you’d expect.

Just remember, you’re not surrendering you’re identity, you’re just allowing God to make you a far better you.

Finally, take this into account:

Christianity isn’t a religion – it’s a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Well thanks once more for reading my blog. I don’t know when I’ll fire another one off, but I’m glad you poked in and read my latest. I pray my impending brick wall turns out to be a paper banner : )

You're Dog-Loving Blogger,

Bunji

P.S. Just as I mentioned with depression, its not uncommon to have anxiety and worry so severe that you personally aren't equipped to deal with it. Countless people are caught in the throes of this emotional condition, so you're not alone. Its not an admission of weakness to admit you have anxiety you can't shake or control. So please, if nothing you've tried on your own is relieving it, don't go on suffering in silence. There are scores of professionals who'll provide you the care you need, seek them out so you'll finally get some peace of mind.

Elephants - Got to Know When to Eat Them…

…And When to Street Them

This is week 4 of my personal blog. I started it when a friend advised me to write to cope with a very deep and personal loss. The theme thus far has been:

How to Deal With Tough Times and Keep Your Sanity Intact

With that said, off we go!

Let me begin by saying that I use A TON of elephant analogies (no pun intended). In case you’ve been under a rock most of your life or you’re new to the English language, the elephant is representative of large obstacles in our lives which seem nearly impossible to overcome. But 99.99% of you know that, so I’ll quit wasting cyberspace and move on.

I don’t know who said it, but I love the quote:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result.”

By that definition, many of us are completely insane. We stay in the same personal, professional or life situations which make us miserable and we stay in them hoping that they'll just get better on thier own.

There are some elephants we simply have no choice but to face, like the death of a loved one or a terminal illness. There are other times we allow ourselves to be subjected to elephants that make our lives miserable and we don’t have to. I experienced this phenomenon myself.

I worked technical support for a news and legal data center in 2009. The money was the best I’d ever been offered, and I was offered benefits right off the bat. I jumped at the chance. I’m somewhat computer literate and have a slightly above average intelligence so I thought I’d do well.

Initially I did do well, but as time wore on, I struggled. In terms of emotions, I was always “on guard”, you know, the way you are when you start a new job? Pushing harder, being aware of your surroundings, triple checking everything you do. As most of you have experienced at one time or another, you’re on edge during this time, it’s like you’re mentally stuck on high gear and your brain is going a million miles an hour.

At some point, naturally, you find your comfort zone and relax a little. Work becomes part of your daily routine with ups and downs. That didn’t happen with this job for me. It’s probably the nature of the beast with IT jobs, but things are ever changing and there is no comfort zone or routine. You learn new policies and procedures almost weekly, and have to come up with difficult solutions to desperate customers in minutes.

I performed satisfactorily, but it came with a high price. I didn’t sleep or eat well. I couldn’t enjoy my time away from work because all I was thinking about was being mentally geared up for work. I had to sleep in my car during lunch to get up the nerve and energy to go back in the building. I was miserable.   

This all came to a head one Monday. I’d done a favor for someone and worked on their computer over the weekend. That following Monday morning before work, I learned that something had gone critically wrong with their computer, the person wasn’t upset, but wanted to know why it had happened. My cup overflowed with that one drop. A year’s worth of depression and anxiety came crashing down on me. I fell apart.

Thank God Vicki was there to comfort and reassure me. My dad came over right away before he went to work. He’d heard I’d broken down. He said something that totally changed my perspective on the matter, he said, “Some things just aren’t worth the cost.” It had never dawned on me to remove my job from my life equation. With the recession hitting the country, I figured I had no choice.

You always have a choice. Whether you’re in an abusive relationship, an impossible job, or whatever it is that you think you can’t walk away from, take a hard look and really think about whether or not you need that stressor in your life. This takes us to this weeks’ nugget:

Nugget #5 Not all your elephants have to be eaten. Kick the ones causing you the most heartburn to the curb.

Don’t be afraid to reevaluate your life. Like my dad said, “Some things aren’t worth the cost.” Yes, telling that abusive person to hit the road may mean you’re on your own with the bills and other life stuff. Walking away from that high paying, but high stress job may mean major sacrifices until you get your income on track. But if the alternative is you being miserable, maybe poor and single may mean freedom and happiness.

Thanks again for reading,

Your Dog-Loving Blogger,

Bunji

Fed Elephants...

...Breed

This is my third blog entry. The theme of this blog thus far has been:

How to Deal With Tough Times and Keep Your Sanity Intact

It’s only too natural to seek relief when you’re in the midst of pain and unhappiness. This is actually a good thing. It means you’re trying to come to grips with what’s happened to you and you’re attempting to get on your feet.

WARNING: INCOMING DIGRESSION!

Actually, I’d be concerned if you weren’t seeking relief of some sort. If you’re lying in bed like a limp prizefighter that just got socked with an uppercut, guess what? You’re depressed. When all the things that make life, life, are all on your back burner, call for help.

Laying around with no desire to do anything isn’t uncommon in the short run. However, if you can’t remember the last time you did something you enjoyed, or your answering machine is jam packed with unanswered messages from friends and loved ones, you’re most likely spiraling deeper in depression and you need to get some outside intervention.

Admitting you're depressed isn’t an admission of weakness, or mental instability. Depression is the human mind’s natural response to ongoing stress and/or trauma. Everyone has it at some point, its part of the human condition. You may not have the inner resources to cope with circumstances that are clearly out of the ordinary. Unless you’re in a high risk job like a spy with a license to kill, or a country with a low mortality rate, you’re not going to be exposed to world-shaking events on a daily basis so you may not have the mental "tools" to deal with it.

The bottom line is see Nugget # 2 - SHARE YOUR ELEPHANT. You have people who love you (Unless you're Usama Bin Laden or a Tele-marketer) and those people will do all they can to support you. So go to them and tell them you need help.

Yes, I digressed….like I said I was going to. Of course if I said I was going to digress, and I digressed, was it really digressing to begin with? OK, never mind.

I’m confusing myself, now.

(Yeah, yeah, yeah, “That’s not so hard to do…” save it.)

Back to my original point which also happens to be this weeks’ nugget,

Nugget# 4: DON’T FEED YOUR ELEPHANT! THEY’LL BREED MORE!

It’s bad enough you have a whole elephant buffet waiting for you. Don’t add to it. For example:

Let’s say you’re in a high stress job. You’ve ignored all my nuggets and have instead chosen to begin drinking at the end of each work day to “wind down”. You’ve just served your "work elephant", which in this case happens to be a tough job, its first bite.

As you go along, your one drink a day turns into two. Now you have a second baby elephant which has just plopped itself down beside you, a drinking problem in its infancy. Add to that, the "work elephant" is beginning to grow in size because you’re distracted at work, you’re having trouble making it there on time, and your performance is slipping. All these factors make an already stressful job even more stressful. Your "work elephant" just grew another size.

When you’re not able to have your daily wind down drink, you’re cranky at home and difficult to live with. There’s elephant number three, the "home stress elephant". You apply the same approach to the "home stress elephant" as you did the "work elephant" and drink even more. Your "drinking elephant" is now adolescent and growing. As you go down this road, you’re attracting all kinds of new elephants – "health elephants", "legal elephants", "spiritual elephants" and so on.

Finally, the elephant that kicked it all off, your "work elephant", does you in. You get fired and at the same time realize your adolescent drinking problem has just matured into full blown adulthood – alcoholism. All the while, everyone around you is treated to massive servings of your herd, until one drink too many and a traffic accident later, someone pays the ultimate price.

I know. This is pretty dire. But it happens. Huge pachyderms grow from baby ones. Avoid choices what will not only fail to solve your problem, but will most likely breed new ones. Here’s some other examples:

Problem: You're In Debt

Non-Solutions: Using Credit Cards, Going To Check Into Cash Places, Gambling, Trying Get Rich Quick Schemes

(No, you can't get rich buying 300 dollars worth of soap and shampoo a month, sorry AMWAY)

Problem: Being Overweight

Non-Solutions: Eating a box of Twinkies because they say “Fat-Free” (Yes, guilty as charged), Diet Pills, Crash Diets

(No, the man with ripped abs on TV is NOT a doctor, and RESULTS AREN'T TYPICAL!)

Problem: You're Stressed

Non-Solutions: Abusing/Consuming Non-prescribed controlled substances, Alcohol, Cigarettes.

You get the idea. Avoid so-called easy solutions and quick fixes, because they aren’t and they won’t. Consult people who really do care about you and they’ll offer advice that may lack the sparkle of a quick fix info-mercial, but their advice will help you get your elephant eaten.

Thanks once again for reading,

You're Dog-Loving Blogger,

Bunji

Elephant is a Dish which is Best….

…When it’s Shared


This is my second stab at a blog entry, so please bear with. To kind of sum up what I said last week, I started this blog on the advice of a friend. I lost my 36 year old wife to a medical condition 3 months ago and am still dealing with the emotional fallout. So as sort of a therapy tool, I do what comes most naturally to me – write about it.

The theme of this blog thus far has been:

How to Deal With Tough Times and Keep Your Sanity Intact

Too often we attempt to carry the load of tragedy and the emotions that come with it, on our own. We bottle it up, shying away from telling others about how we feel and never venting it or confiding in others about our struggle. Either we’re embarrassed or we don’t want to burden others in our lives who we think have enough to deal with already.

This brings me to Nugget #2 – Share Your Elephant Bites With Others

The truth is your elephant is much easier for others to eat. Doesn’t it usually feel good when a friend stops by to tell you about a difficult coworker who smacks her gum all day, or the stubborn 80 year old clerk at the DMV who probably stamped Henry Ford’s first license? It gives you both the chance to look and the situation and maybe even laugh at it (or in my case cry about it) together. Your case is no different. It’s a burden your friends and family can cope with easier than you while at the same time being able to empathize with that you’re going through.

When you share your concerns with friends and loved ones, it gives them an opportunity to help someone they care about; to make a difference in your life.

Personally, the person who I usually shared most of my elephant with is gone. So I got dealt a double whammy. On a positive note, my friends and family have been doing all they can to take up the slack. I'm grateful to be blessed with them.

So now you’re saying, “OK, fine. I’ve stopped panicking and I’ve shared my troubles with others, but my world is STILL upside down and the pieces of my life are strewn about me like living room furniture on the front lawn after a tornado. What do I do next?”

Nugget #3 Let It All Out

Absorbing all your emotions and keeping them inside during tough times is a bad idea. Shrinks like to use the ten dollar word “internalize” to describe this behavior. It’s unhealthy and can even harm you physically through ulcers, high blood pressure, or digestion issues… you get the idea. (OK, I could have left digestion issues out, but as people really close to me know, it’s my personal “issue” of choice)

The point is you simply MUST have an outlet.

Maybe its overshare to say this, but right after Vicki passed, I had to be alone to vent. I’ll spare you the particulars, but needless to say I not only fell to pieces, I shattered into little bits. I don’t recommend you go postal or anything. I don’t want to be responsible for some air traffic controller going ballistic on the job and then citing this blog as his or her inspiration to do so. I do, however think that venting your emotions is not only acceptable, it’s necessary. I’ve no formal education on the subject, but personally speaking it was a crucial part of my healing process.

Beat a pillow, go to a secluded area and scream at the top of your lungs, hit some balls on the driving range or the batting cage (Don’t get them mixed up though; you’ll get clobbered by a baseball if you try using a 9 Iron in the batting cage. I’m just saying…”)

The truth is, if you don’t blow some of the steam off, some poor little old lady who’s taking 20 minutes in the express checkout lane at the supermarket will most likely become the object of your emotional outburst. So, for Mrs. Ethel Mothbottom’s sake, vent in a safe area that’s NOT a supermarket.

I think that’s all you can tolerate reading for now : ) I will be making this a weekly blog. So stay tuned next week, same blog website, same blog webtime!

Thanks for reading,

Your Dog-Loving Blogger,

Bunji

P.S. Dogs don’t know a thing about elephants, supermarkets, or DMV ladies so please don’t vent on them either.

How to Eat an Elephant….

…One Bite at a Time


My parents love to share this expression anytime I’m overwhelmed. The problem is I’ve had to eat ALOT of elephant over the years. For the most part, I’m eating American-Style elephant. I’m out of work, overweight, and deep in debt. Who isn’t?

Recently, my plate has been overflowing with elephant with the passing of my 36 year old wife of 16 years, Vicki. Unbeknownst to me and everyone else, she was suffering from a deep vein thrombosis in her leg. In laymen’s terms she had a large blood clot in her leg. On the morning of June 9, 2010, clots broke free and traveled to her lungs. She became light headed, passed out and stopped breathing. She never recovered.

In a blink of an eye, I became a single parent of two kids and a grieving widower.

It’s going on 3 months now. I’m still trying to find what my pastor describes as my “new normal”. I drew a tremendous amount of my identity from my relationship with Vicki. Each day was planned in tandem with hers. Meals, where and when we’d go places, who we’d visit with, it all revolved around her. That’s not a bad thing either; in point of fact it was comforting to be with her. In addition to identity, I was the recipient of reassurance, affection, laughter, and… well you get the idea, in a word, love.

So when I stop and think about it, I feel like someone who’d been walking in the cold who just had a warm coat ripped of their back. Its taken 3 months, but the shock is finally starting to fade.

All of that brings me to this; a dear friend knowing all I’ve been through, suggested I start writing. So, here I sit, poised at my kitchen pc; trying to figure out how I should start etching my thoughts into cyber-space.

I guess the theme of these blogs will be, how to deal with tough times and keep your sanity intact (for the most part). I know first hand how to mentally handle really hard stuff, and I’ll do my best to impart what little wisdom I’ve accumulated in my 37 years on this planet.

So, Nugget #1 is this. Don’t Panic!
(Something I learned from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

The only exceptions are:

1. You or someone near you has caught fire. Or you AND someone near you has caught fire. In either case, extinguish yourself first, then help the person near you. Trying to do so in the opposite order won’t be very productive. If the person near you wasn’t on fire to begin with, you’ll wind up catching them on fire, if they were on fire then the two of you combined will most likely combust even faster. Come to think of it, panicking doesn’t do much good in this situation.

2. Either, a large asteroid is headed for the earth; an alien invasion force is, well, invading; or the Hadron Collider in Geneva has spawned a world eating black hole. In any of these cases, it is perfectly acceptable for you to panic. Of course, it won’t affect the outcome, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.

3. Finally, Milli Vanilli gets back together. Trust me, of everything I’ve mentioned thus far, this frightens me the most. I’ll be setting up a hotline. In case any of you catch wind of this world ending event, WARN ME.

Seriously, whether you’ve just learned about something horrible in your life, or you're in the midst of dealing with it, the best thing you can do is avoid looking too far ahead or too far behind. Look back and you’ll see regrets and sadness. Look ahead and worry waits for you.

Just make the most out of what each day gives you. Take a deep breath, watch a sunrise, and pet a dog; but whatever you do, you’ve got to keep living… even if it’s just moment to moment.

Like Dory says, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”

Thanks for reading,

Your Dog-Loving Blogger,

Bunji